If you are ever unlucky enough to hear an answer phone message left by me, it will go something like this…
‘Er… dammit, can’t hear the beep – has the beep happened? Er… Hello, this is Mo-‘
And that’s as far as I get before the time limit cuts me off…
Why are beeps so high on answer phones?
Come to think of it where the heck did the idea of beeps come from in the first place?
Why not a big, low booming foghorn? When I lived in Pompey, I could always hear the ships honking away as I lay in bed at night and if everything that beeped honked instead my life would be so much easier.
The beeps that I can’t hear fall in to two categories – those which are helpful to people, and those that stop people getting dead…
The ones in the helpful category, I find mildly inconvenient – like the time I got distracted watching the Neighbours Omnibus and let my flapjack bake for two hours because I couldn’t hear the oven timer (mental note to self to get Miele to design a vibrating oven).
Then, there are the beeps that signal that tube doors are closing. I don’t like tubes at the best of times but I have this amazingly dumb habit of sticking my head into or out of the doors just as they close and… BANG… that’s another few brain cells gone! What’s worse is the looks of pity that people give me, as if I’m some idiot who ignored the beeps. ‘I DIDN’T HEAR THEM!’ I want to shout, nursing my sore bonse and going bright red with embarrassment.
But I don’t, I just sit there and ignore everyone, like everyone does on the tube.
Now, onto the dead ones. These include Level Crossing alarms on train tracks – I really cannot hear these and living in the sticks growing up, there were quite a few. One time, when I was skiving off RE and going to the pub I almost got hit by a train – I looked both ways and stepped out to hear a ROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR
PAAAARRRRRRRRRP!!!! (at least the horns are those wonderful low booming noises).
Head-girl-and-best-friend saved my life – she grabbed my rucksack and pulled me backwards.
I bought her some chips and mayonnaise in the pub to say thanks…
…generous as I am!
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